My name is Paul Goldsmith. I am a teacher of Economics, Politics, Extended Project and Geography at Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, London, England. It is important to make clear that any opinions given in this blog are my own, and not the school’s.

I am also the co-author, with Sky News Home Editor Jason Farrell, of ‘How to Lose a Referendum: The Definitive Story of Why the UK voted for Brexit‘, the only book that links the history of Britain’s engagement with the European Unity project with the EU Referendum campaign to give a comprehensive explanation of the biggest political earthquake in British history.

I am also studying for a PhD at King’s College London in Political Science. My focus on how how the 2015 Referendum Act led to the current Brexit chaos, essentially by being a piece of legislation that allowed a UK Prime Minister to call a referendum in which he had no plans of delivering one of the results, allowed him to resign once that result happened, along with the campaign that pushed for the result shutting down, leaving a new Government to deliver a policy it didn’t believe in with incomplete instructions from the electorate.

Prior to Latymer Upper I taught for four years at Queens Park Community school in North West London, a non-selective co-educational state comprehensive. I taught during my teacher training year in Tower Hamlets and Camden, meaning I have experience of different types of school environment, school leadership and pupils.

Before I became a teacher I spent nine years as  a management consultant, training at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, then moving around to different consultancies and companies before completing an MBA at Cass Business School, City University in London, and then launching my own consultancy to advise on reputation management. Clients have ranged from UK and foreign governments to multi-national companies to small companies.

I try to write from experience – either my own or from talking to friends and acquaintances who, for instance, have started up and run their own businesses. What I will try not to do however is to extrapolate one or two anecdotes into an all-encompassing theory – although I may use it to explain or back up an opinion I have.

Politically I am very much of the centre. This is not something that many people, least of all my pupils, understand. I care about what I think works and makes sense and I don’t care if that policy or opinion is “right” or “left” wing. I am lucky enough to be teaching and talking about economics and politics every day so I do talk from a position of having considered the issues involved, but I will be likely to write a blog post which contradicts itself politically and I make no apology for that.

I was brought up extremely privileged, the son of a father who worked extremely hard to give his family the comfortable life that he hadn’t had, so I went to one of the best independent schools in the country, and I have never known what it is like to want for anything. I won’t apologise for that, but I will apologise if it means I occasionally seem to not fully understand or empathise with those who do want for things. Please do feel free to comment on my blogs if I have got it wrong.

I’m writing this blog in part to help improve the understanding of both students and the wider public about issues that matter in the world of economics, politics and education. Occasionally I will have opinions on those issues – and  I will try to make sure to provide a balance when giving those opinions.

If you want to contact me, you can at pjgoldsmith@gmail.com. Or use this: